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NEWS, NOTES &
COMMENTARY
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The Bradsher Beat
Wednesday, December 7,
2011
By Bethany Bradsher |
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Ladies and their diehard fans
primed for VCU
By
Bethany Bradsher
©2011 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
View the Bonesville Mobile Alpha version of this page.
Most of the players on
the Lady Pirates basketball team weren’t around for the first seven games of
their current home winning streak, which is all the more reason for them to
stretch it out.
This squad, which
features a large crop of newcomers including sophomore transfer Kristine
Mial and former Clemson player Bryelle Smith, is 5-2, a record that is
underscored by coach Heather Macy and her players’ assertions that they seem
to improve every day.
Armed with a 12-game home
winning streak and returning starters Shala Hodges and Chareya Smith, who
are each averaging double-doubles for the season, East Carolina will face
one of its more daunting non-conference opponents — Virginia Commonwealth —
tonight at Minges.
“What’s so great about
this team is how hard they work and how committed they are to being good,”
Macy said. “They just come every single day to practice and keep getting
better and better and better.”
The spirited Minges
atmosphere has come as a surprise to newcomers like Kristine Mial, a
standout performer for the Pirates who was a second-team junior college
All-American at Frederick Community College. Mial, a 5-9 forward, notched 16
points and 11 points against Monmouth for her first double-double as a
Pirate. Wins like that one have given Mial a great deal of confidence in her
new home fans.
“It’s not just having
people in the stands; it’s recognizing the people in the stands,” Mial said.
“I guess I didn’t know what to expect when I got here.”
“We have a really great
atmosphere from our band, to cheerleaders and the dance team to the fans,
everybody makes it an event,” Macy said.
Freshman Tatiana Chapple,
one of the top scoring freshmen on the ECU roster, has noticed that the
team’s fans are knowledgeable and passionate about the Lady Pirates, not
just ECU or basketball in general. That dynamic makes them play harder
because of the excitement in the stands and also because they feel that they
owe it to the crowd to provide something to celebrate.
“It’s just really
exciting to play in front of fans who are there to support you,” Chapple
said. “We’re just looking forward to really showing people what we can do.”
The VCU matchup will
provide a legitimate test, because not only did the Rams make the NIT field
last year, they are returning stellar seniors Courtney Hurt and Andrea
Barbour. Hurt, who has scored three consecutive double-doubles and is on the
Naismith Watch List for the top 50 women’s players in the nation.
“They’re a postseason
team from a year ago and have two of the most dominant players that we’ll
see this year in scoring and rebounding,” Macy said. “We’ll be facing two
really large challenges. They’re much bigger than we are, and we’re really
going to need to control the tempo.”
Win or lose, the Pirates
will have to take a break from the comfort of home court with trips to two
holiday tournaments — the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach and the
Terrapin Classic in Maryland. After those trips, it’s only a matter of weeks
before the Conference USA slate begins, and the commencement of those
crucial games would be an ideal time for this team to answer all of its
question and move forward on the momentum of every athlete’s greatest
strengths.
Chapple might be new to
Division I play, but she has seen enough of her Pirates and their opponents
to believe that she is playing for a team that has all of the right building
blocks to assemble something great.
“Me and my teammates have
great chemistry, and it’s been really easy to transfer that onto the floor,”
Chapple said. “We have so many threats on defense and offense, and we’re
just blessed to have such a deep bench.”
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